Automatic performance system for electronic instruments

ABSTRACT

The keying patterns for a performance on an electronic instrument are recorded on a magnetic tape from which they can be reproduced to automatically control the instrument and reproduce the performance. The recording density is greatly increased by intermittently driving the recording medium past a recording head through a predetermined distance only when the keying pattern varies.

United States Patent 1191 Shimizu et al.

1 1 AUTOMATIC PERFORMANCE SYSTEM FOR ELECTRONIC INSTRUMENTS [75]lnventors: Takehiro Shimizu; Tutomu Fukui,

both of Tokyo, Japan [73] Assignee: Pioneer Electronic Corporation,

Tokyo, Japan [22] Filed: Dec. 28, 1973 211 Appl. No.: 429,419

[30] Foreign Application Priority Data Dec. 29, 1972 Japan 47-2646 [52]U.S. Cl 84/115, 84/462, 84/D1G. 29, 346/20, 346/33 M, 360/52 [51] Int.Cl. Gl0f 5/00, GlOg 3/04 [58] Field of Search 84/1.011.03,

84/128, 464, DIG. 29, 461, 462, 115; 179/1004] R; 346/33 M, 49, 20;360/52 1 1 Feb. 11, 1975 3,647,929 3/1972 Mi1L1c,Jr 34 1101 3,652,7763/1972 Milde, Jr .1 84/138 3,657,488 4/1972 Pountney 6! 11 346/20 X3,683,096 8/1972 Peterson et a1. 84/1 15 3,715,731 2/1973 Kan 346/33 M X3,771,406 11/1973 Wheelwright 84/464 3,781,452 12/1973 Vauclain 84/1283,786,201 1/1974 Myers et a1. 346/33 M X 3,789,719 2/1974 Maillct3,797,030 3/1974 Katagiri et a1. 3,829,597 8/1974 Peterson et 211.3,831,196 8/1974 Thorpe 360/52 Primary Examiner-Stephen .l. TomskyAssistant ExaminerStanley J. Witkowski Attorney, Agent, or FirmSughrue,Rothwell, Mion, Zinn & Macpeak [57] ABSTRACT The keying patterns for aperformance on an electronic instrument are recorded on a magnetic tapefrom which they can be reproduced to automatically [56] References Citedcontrol the instrument and reproduce the perform- UN T ST PATENTS ance.The recording density is greatly increased by in- 3,319,237 5/1967Jones, Jr. 360/52 ermittently driving the recording medium past a re-3,426,336 2/1969 Gabor 360/52 X cording head through a predetermineddistance only 3,548,064 12/1970 Onc1ey.... 84/101 when the keyingpattern varies, 3 3,604,299 9/1971 Englund 3,631,427 12/1971 Hein et a1.360/52 2 Clalms, 7 Drawing Flgllres BIT DELAY fin"- T {fill VOLTAGERESET 1 LOGICAL CIRCUIT LEVEL PARALLEL-SERIAL SERIAL PARALLEL RESET HTRANS. cmcun TRANS- A" LATCHING CIRCUIT VOLTAGE 0 LEVEL REC. 4 AMP. l

8 RESET STOP'PULSE L PARALLEL-SERIAL GATE TRANS. OIRCUIT TIME BASE CLOCKHRZ 9 REC.3AMP.

MOTOR CONTIROL PATENTETJ E 1 m5 3.865.002

SHEET 1 BF 3 lqH VOLTAGE TT T I T Loe|cAL CIRCUIT LEVEL PARALLEL-SERIALSERIAL PARALLEL RESET- TRAAsfcmcuTT A TRANS. CIRCTJIT TTTAT- 5 1 LOWVOLTAGE LATCHINGCIRCUIT A l9 0 LT-IVEL RECQAMR 8 6' REsET STOP-PULSE TPARALLEL-SERIAL A GATE" TRANS. CIRCUIT ll HR2 TIME BASE cLo' cA 9REC.3AMP. REC. IZAMP.

I MOTOR CONTROL HRI HR3 TRACK TRACK 2 TRACK 33 PATENTEDFEBI 1 ms TRACK ITRACK 2 TRACK s,

SHEET 20F 3 ONE SHOT CIRCUIT ONE SHOT MULTIVIBRATOR ONE SHOT I I Q-,- tD ONE SHOT IN D MULTIVIBRATOR I m v mom cmcun s PATENTEDFEBI H9153.865.002

SHEH 3 OF 3 I DECODERS 21 A I 25 2g l necomzn GATE SERIAL- L 22 w sumREGISTER mus. c1 F L 2 sum PULSE LATCHlNG cmcun I A ATOR .STOP

PULSE 3 2 CLOCK TIME s5 \PHASE COMPARATOR MOTOR CONTROL BACKGROUND OFTHE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates toan automatic performance system for electronic instruments such as, forexample, electronic organs.

2. Description of the Prior Art In order to reproduce a performance ofan electronic instrument at any desired time, there has been proposed anautomatic performance system in which groups of parallel signals aregenerated in accordance with the keying patterns of the electronicinstrument. These signals are translated into series pulse signals whichvary in every predetermined sufficiently short time unit enabling theautomatic performance system to respond to the change of thedemisemiquaver at least, and the translated series pulse signals arerecorded on a magnetic recording medium such as, for example, magnetictape, and when demanded, these recorded series pulse signals arereproduced from the recording medium and translated back into theoriginal parallel signals which control the operation of the electronicinstrument to reproduce the performance. This has been the detaileddisclosure of the system in copending application Ser. No. 4l 7,331filed, on Nov. 19,

1973, by Tutomu Fukui and Tsutomu Suzuqui for Automatic MusicalPerformance Method and Apparatus for a Keyed Instrument, and assigned tothe assignee of the present application.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The main object of the present invention is, inthe electronic instrument described above, to highly increase therecording density by intermittently driving the recording medium onwhich the keying patterns are recorded past a magnetic head through apredetermined distance only when the keying pattern varies.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a general block diagram of arecording system of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the start pulse detector circuit employedin the recording system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 shows the relation between the respective tracks of the magnetictape and the blocks of the recording system in FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 illustrates the waveforms of the signals recorded in each trackof the magnetic tape in FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 is a general block diagram of a read-out system of an embodimentof the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of the start pulse generator in FIG. 5.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of the selective gate in FIG. 5.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring now to thedrawings, FIG. 1 is a general block diagram which illustrates in broadschematic form a recording system for recording keying patterns of anelectronic instrument on a recording medium such as the magnetic tapeshown in FIG. 3. In FIG. 1, a parallel-serial translating circuit 1,which is provided with as many input terminals as the number of keys ofthe electronic instrument, has the function of translating the groups ofparallel signals, which are associated with the keying patterns andsupplied to the input terminals, into serial pulse signals that shift inevery one clock pulse time unit in accordance with the clock pulsessupplied from a clock pulse generator 2. The clock pulses are applied toa magnetic head HR 1 a recording amplifier 3 and are'recorded on a firsttrack of a magnetic tape, whereas the translated serial pulse signalsare applied to a magnetic head I-IR2 through a one bit delay and anotherrecording amplifier 4 and re corded on a second track. 1

On the other hand, a start pulse generating circuit 5 is constructed,for example, as shown in FIG. 2, namely it is composed of as manyinputterminals IN as the number of keys, oneshot circuit, which are connectedto the corresponding input terminal respectively, composed of aninvertor I, a differentiating circuit D, an or" circuit OR and a oneshotmultivibrator, and another input terminal IN receiving a signal from theserial parallel translating circuit 6. When a key is depressed orreleased, the corresponding oneshot circuit in the start pulsegenerating circuit 5 detects the front edge or the rear edge of thesignal which appears when the key is depressed and disappears when thekey is released, and generates a start pulse having a predeterminedsufficiently narrow pulse-width enabling it to repeatedly respond to thequick change of the keying pattern, or the change of the demisemiquaverat least.

Explaining in further detail, when a key is depressed, the positivesignal produced thereby is directly applied to the differentiatingcircuit D not through the inventer I and differentiating there, and apositive pulse signal obtained by the differentiation actuates theoneshot multivibrator through the or circuit and causes the oneshotmultivibrator to generate the start pulse; and when the key is releasedafter that, the inverter I generates a positive signal because the inputof the inverter becomes zero, and thus the oneshot multivibrator isactuated, as mentioned above, by the positive pulse signal passingthrough the differentiating circuit D and the or circuit OR andgenerates the start pulse again. That is, when a different key isdepressed to change the keying pattern, a start pulse is generated andsupplied to a seri-' al-parallel translating circuit 6 as a resetsignal. This serial-parallel translating circuit 6, comprising aserialin parallel-out shift register, after being reset, will receivesequentially as a time count pulse signal the input information of the llogical circuit level that is supplied to the serial input of the shiftregister in accordance with time basepulses, which will be describedhereinafter, and will shift as many times as the number of time basepulses that occur in the duration of the same keying pattern. Inaddition, the start pulse generating circuit 5 generates the start pulseby receiving a signal from the end terminal of the serial paralleltranslating circuit 6 in a case also where no change of the keyingpattern happens longer than a predetermined time period, or the timeperiod of the predetermined one block of the clock pulses.

On the other hand, the time base generating circuit 7 counts the clockpulses and will generate a time base pulse every time the generator 7has counted the number of clock pulses which correspond to one block onthe magnetic tape. The time base pulse generating circuit 7 is aconventional pulse counter in which one pulse is sent out as an outputwhen the predetermined number of clock pulses are counted. The time basepulse is supplied to the series-parallel translating circuit 6 as aclock input to shift the time count pulse signal.

The stop pulse generating circuit 8 will generate a stop pulse when ithas counted one block of clock pulses passing through a gate 8' which isopened by the start pulse. The stop pulse generating circuit 8,like'timebase generating circuit 7, is a conventional counter in whichone pulse is sent out after a predetermined count. The stop pulse isused to block the gate 8' and at the same time is supplied to atape-drive motor control circuit 9. The tape drive motor control circuit9 is supplied with the start pulse from the start pulse generatingcircuit as well as with the stop pulse, so as to actuate a tape-drivemotor M when the start pulse is applied and to deenergize it when thestop pulse is applied, whereby the magnetic tape may be drivenintermittently. The motor control circuit 9 is well known in datarecorders and may be a flip flop which is set by the start pulse andreset by the stop pulse. The motor M preferably has a quick responsecharacteristic so as to be started and stopped as quickly as possible.

The parallel output signals from the series-parallel translating circuit6, or the time count signal is shifted into a latching circuit 10 whenthe keying pattern changes, namely when the start pulse adds to thelatching circuit 10, and appear at the output terminals of the latchingcircuit 10 as the output signal thereof. This output signal, or the timecount pulse signal associated with the keying pattern signal recorded onthe (n)th block shown in FIG. 3 is shifted into the parallel-serialstranslating circuit 11 when it receives, as a reset pulse, the startpulse delayed for one bit time period of the clock pulse by passingthrough a bit delay circuit, and at the same time the serials-paralleltranslating circuit 10 is reset. At this time, the new keying patternhas already been stored as the (n+1 )th keying pattern in theserial-parallel translating circuit 6, and the motor M has alreadystarted to revolve. Consequently, the output signals of both theparallel-serial translating circuits 1 and 11 are sent out by theincoming clock pulses respectively, and recorded on the respectivetracks of the magnetic tape at the same time. That is the keying patternsignal of the (n+1 )th block is recorded on a second track of themagnetic tape through the one bit delay circuit, the amplifier 4 and themagnetic head HR2; and the time count pulse signal associated with thekeying pattern recorded on the (n)th block of the magnetic tape isrecorded on a third track through the amplifier 12 and the magnetic headI-IR3.

FIG. 3 illustrates each recording block on the magnetic'tape, and FIG. 4illustrates an example of the signals recorded in each track of onerecording block. According to the above disclosure, it may be readilyunderstood that both the (n+1)th keying pattern signal and the timecount signal determining the play time of the keying pattern signalrecorded in the previous recording block, or the (n)th recording blockare recorded on respective tracks of the magnetic tape in the (n+1 )threcording block. In addition, it should be noted that, when the timebase pulses are counted to the number corresponding to the one recordingblock, namely when the time count pulse signal appears at the endterminal of the series-parallel translating circuit 6, the start pulsesignal is generated again by the start pulse generating circuit 5 asmentioned above, and the magnetic tape will be driven as far as the nextblock even if there is no change in the keying pattern.

Now referring to FIG. 5,there is illustratedaread-out system. Supposingnow the (n+1 )th block is to be readout, then a start pulse generatingcomparison circuit 21 operates to generate a start pulse (having, forexample, one bit width) which opens a selective gate 22 so as to supplythe clock input terminal of a shift register 23 with the clock pulsedecoded by a decoder 24 from the output of a read-out magnetic head HPl.

Examples of the start pulse generating comparison circuit 21 and theselective gate 22 are illustrated in FIG. 6 and FIG. 7, respectively.

In the pulse generating comparison circuit shown in FIG. 6, when bothsignals are simultaneously applied by using a time counting signal sentout from shift register 23 and a time base pulse sent out from time basepulse generator 32, the output of the NAND circuit becomes 0. As aresult no output appears at the output of the AND circuit. However, whena time base input exists in the absence of a pulse from shift register23, the output of the NAND circuit is a 1 and, as a, result, a startpulse is sent out from the AND circuit. In FIG. 7, the two NAND-circuits comprise a flip-flop which is set and reset by the start andstop pulses, respectively. Depending on the state of the flip-flop,either a clock pulse or a time base pulse is provided as an outputthrough the OR circuitafter being gated to the corresponding ANDcircuit.

Since the start pulse is also applied to the T input of a latchingcircuit 25, the information stored in a serialparallel translatingcircuit 26, into which the signal corresponding to the (n)th keyingpattern has already been shifted, may be transferred into the latchingcircuit 25 to be stored therein. In the succeeding step, the keyingpattern signal of the (n+1 )th block recorded in the second track of themagnetic tape will be read-out through a magnetic head HP2 and, afterbeing decoded by a decoder 27, will be read into the serial-paralleltranslating circuit 26 in accordance with the clock pulse from thedecoder 24. At the same time, the (n)th time count signal written in the(n+l )th block will be read-out through a magnetic head HP3 and, afterbeing decoded by the decoder 28, will be shifted into the shift register23 in accordance with the clock pulse from the decoder 24.

On the other hand, there is provided a stop pulse generating circuit 29,similar to stop pulse generating circuit 8, which will generate a stoppulse when it has counted the number of clock pulse corresponding to oneblock. The stop pulse will be supplied to a tapedrive motor controlcircuit 30 similar to motor control circuit 9 which may control therevolution of a motor M to stop the motor M, and at'the same time, willopen the selective gate 22 so as to cause the shift register 23 toreceive a time base pulse. A time pulse will be generated by a time basepulse generator 32, similar to time base pulse generator 7 once everycounting of one block of clock pulses generated by a clock pulsegenerator 31. At this time, the keying pattern signal written in the(n)th block is shifted into the latching circuit 25, and the time countsignal written in the (n+1 )th block,

which functions to control the play time duration of the keying pattern,is shifted into the shift register 23. The information stored in theshift register 23, therefore, will be sent out once every cycle of thetime base pulse, and will be compared in the start pulse generatingcomparison circuit 21 so that, at the time when no time base pulseoutput is supplied from the output of the shift register 23, thecomparison circuit 21 will generate a start pulse to actuate the motor Mso as to drive the magnetic tape for a predetermined distanceintermittently. By the repetition of the process described above,whenever the keying pattern changes, and even when a key of theelectronic instrument is depressed continuously for a duration longerthan the time of one block, the final bit will necessarily be a zerocount signal, whereby the magnetic tape may be driven for every block.Thus, the automatic performance of the electronic instrument can beaccomplished by way of the operation of signal gates controlled by theoutput of latching circuit 25.

During moving of the magnetic tape, if there is a phase differencebetween the clock pulse decoded by the decoder 24 and the clock pulsesupplied from the clock pulse generator 31, a timing discrepancy of thetime base pulse will occur at the time of stopping of the tape, therebypossibly causing a malfunction. A conventional phase comparison circuit33 will operate to generate a control signal to regulate the speed ofrevolution of the motor M, so that coincidence of the clock pulsedecoded by the decoder 24 with the clock pulse from the clock pulsegenerator as a reference may be achieved.

While the invention has been particularly shown and described withreference to a preferred embodiment thereof, it will be understood bythose skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may bemade therein without departing from the spirit and scope of theinvention.

We claim:

1. An automatic performance system for electronic 6 instrumentscomprising a source'of clock pulses; parallel-serial translating circuitmeans for translating groups of parallel ON-OFF signals generated inparallel in accordance with keying patterns of an electronic instrument,into a train of serial pulse signals that may .vary in everypredetermined infinitesimal time unit corresponding to a clock pulse; arecording means including a recording head and a recording medium forintermittently driving said recording medium a predetermined distancerelative to said recording head in response to a change in said keyingpattern so that an output signal from the parallel serial translatingcircuit means is recorded in one block corresponding to saidpredetermined distance ofa track of the recording medium and so that thetime duration of the block is recorded as time count signals in thesucceeding block of another track of the recording medium; means forcontrolling the intermittent movement of the recording medium inaccordance with the time count signal; a reproducing head forreproducing the intermittently recorded output from said parallel-serialtranslating circuit means; a serial-parallel translating circuit meansfor translating the recorded train of serial pulse signals, read outthrough said reproducing head, into groups of parallel signals that varyin said infinitesimal time unit; and means for controlling theperformance of the electronic instrument with the output from saidserialparallel translating circuit.

2. An automatic performance system for electronic instruments as definedin claim 1, wherein said recording medium is a magnetic tape and saidrecording and reproducing head is a magnetic head.

1. An automatic performance system for electronic instruments comprisinga source of clock pulses; parallel-serial translating circuit means fortranslating groups of parallel ON-OFF signals generated in parallel inaccordance with keying patterns of an electronic instrument, into atrain of serial pulse signals that may vary in every predeterminedinfinitesimal time unit corresponding to a clock pulse; a recordingmeans including a recording head and a recording medium forintermittently driving said recording medium a predetermined distancerelative to said recording head in response to a change in said keyingpattern so that an output signal from the parallel serial translatingcircuit means is recorded in one block corresponding to saidpredetermined distance of a track of the recording medium and so thatthe time duration of the block is recorded as time count signals in thesucceeding block of another track of the recording medium; means forcontrolling the intermittent movement of the recording medium inaccordance with the time count signal; a reproducing head forreproducing the intermittently recorded output from said parallel-serialtranslating circuit means; a serial-parallel translating circuit meansfor translating the recorded train of serial pulse signals, read outthrough said reproducing head, into groups of parallel signals that varyin said infinitesimal time unit; and means for controlling theperformance of the electronic instrument with the output from saidserial-parallel translating circuit.
 2. An automatic performance systemfor electronic instruments as defined in claim 1, wherein said recordingmedium is a magnetic tape and said recording and reproducing head is amagnetic head.